The secretary, watching his chairman, carefully organized his thoughts.
His superior could be arrogant and willful at times, but he was otherwise an excellent man to work for. He judged situations objectively and was clear in both reward and punishment. He had promoted him—a Beta—purely on merit.
But recently, whenever matters involved Haejin Bright, his judgment seemed to blur. Keeping that instinct neatly tucked away, the secretary turned the page.
Haejin was not pregnant. Recessives were originally known to have difficulty conceiving. Beyond that, the blood test revealed a great deal of information. For example, that Haejin was currently in a rather severe state of malnutrition.
After a brief hesitation, the secretary closed the file on Haejin Bright. Even reconsidering it, it felt like the kind of information Lyle would snap at him for mentioning as unnecessary.
Instead, in a calm tone, he asked, seeking direction.
“What shall we do now?”
Tapping the black desk that once reminded him of Haejin’s hair, Lyle sank into thought. He had intended to go back and negotiate again, but did he truly need to chase someone who was acting this way?
Even as he assembled that rational line of reasoning, his brow refused to smooth out. When they first signed the contract, Haejin had nodded with a face desperate enough to belong to another world. Now he was firmly saying he did not need it.
Of course, Lyle knew well that Haejin’s motive was not petty greed. The investigation conducted during negotiations had shown that nearly the entire sum paid under the contract had gone to hospital bills. The account he had accessed with overwhelming information power held barely enough to last a few weeks.
Following that train of thought, Lyle paused.
That meant that for the past five years, Haejin had not saved a single coin for himself. And naturally, Lyle had never permitted him to seek other employment.
He soon raked a hand roughly through his hair, discarding the thought. There had been no need for money while living in his estate. If there had been such a fundamental problem, it would have reached his ears.
When it came to Haejin, he found himself thinking far too much. The unfamiliar phenomenon irritated him deeply.
The fingers that had been tapping in steady rhythm came to an abrupt stop.
“Chairman?”
“Find him. For now.”
And yet he could not suppress the desire to have Haejin placed back in front of him.
***
Haejin kept walking forward.
He had come out as though fleeing, yet he did not feel particularly anxious. A person with nothing left to lose became brave, they said. He thought calmly that he fit that description.
The season that had been late autumn was now striding swiftly into winter. As someone who only wanted to sit down and stop moving, he let the thought that the season was running ahead of him drift away meaninglessly.
Though he wore his thickest clothes, the wind cut sharply into him. Haejin hunched over as though embracing the family photograph tucked inside his coat.
The clothes Lyle had provided each year had been warmer and lighter, if he remembered correctly. But they had never truly been his, so he was not in a position to regret them. Besides, the thickest coat had disappeared from the room before he had even worn it more than a few times.
After transferring buses several times, he reached the outskirts of the city. He bought something simple to eat and then walked.
He walked because he had nowhere to go.
“Mom!”
“You’ll get hurt if you run.”
When the sensation in his legs nearly faded, Haejin found a bench and sat. In front of him was a small park. The kind that came with a few children’s playground structures.
A small child ran toward his mother. A middle-aged Beta woman spoke worriedly while opening her arms wide.
From that small gesture, Haejin easily recalled his adoptive parents.
‘Haejin!’
His mother, bright as sunlight, had loved to hug him until he could barely breathe. During adolescence, he had shown a little distaste. His friends had all done the same, so he thought he should too. Only after losing that embrace did he realize how much he had liked it.
Foolishly. I shouldn’t have done that.
Before being adopted, he had envied scenes like that intensely. But after his adoption, he had never once stared at them blankly. He had had a family no less than anyone else.
To think he would watch such a scene again like this.
It frightened him that tears still would not come.
***
“You still haven’t found him?”
Three weeks had passed since Lyle last spent a rut period with Haejin. The only reason he had endured this long was because of that rut; otherwise he would have long since been hospitalized from pheromone congestion. Even now, the faint but persistent headache remained. The violent rut had meant nothing.
He had ordered them to find Haejin, but naturally, Lyle had continued arranging other Omegas. It had been nothing more than an impulse. Even if Haejin were found, there was a high chance he would ignore him rather than renew the contract.
He did not even have the time to sit face-to-face with a prospective contract Omega, so this time he had left it entirely to the secretary, telling him to secure a suitable Recessive. There had been a faint expectation that once the urgent need for discharge came, this rejection would fade.
Yesterday, when he went to the estate for pheromone discharge, he had finally failed to suppress his nausea.
Annoyed at the thought of having to repeat this unpleasant act, Lyle entered that room. His head felt dull from pheromones built to their limit. A Recessive Omega sat in the room where he had once intertwined with Haejin.
Like Haejin, the Omega’s eyes were covered and both arms bound. He appeared tense. For some reason, he was still clothed, and Lyle let out an involuntary sigh. He was irritated at the bother of having to undress him. In many ways, he was nothing like Haejin, who cooperated efficiently without requiring such effort.
In other words, that Omega was not Haejin.
The moment that thought surfaced, Lyle rushed to the bathroom and retched. The violent rejection rose up, pressing hard against his solar plexus.
Now, having endured the day on headache medication, he found no outlet for his irritation. Haejin’s whereabouts were still unknown.
“It seems he’s only using cash. He avoids CCTV areas and keeps his phone off at all times. Most of all, he doesn’t appear to have any place with connections, which makes the search difficult.”
“Ha.”
Lyle had never once asked about the progress of the search before. Taking advantage of that, the secretary now displayed the accumulated information on Haejin on his work tablet.
Enduring the pounding headache, Lyle remained silent. He could not understand Haejin’s behavior.
If the result had at least shown pregnancy, it would have made sense. Fleeing with the intent of bearing his child would have been reason enough.
But had the contract with him truly repulsed him that much? Enough to abandon what little belongings he had left?
“I don’t need it.”
The words rang like an auditory hallucination, and the headache dropped heavily into his chest. Confronted with something he could not comprehend, he stopped thinking further.
Once he found him and placed him in front of him, it would become clear.
“What shall we do with the belongings Mr. Bright left behind?”
“Pack everything. Not a single item missing.”
He would find Haejin soon enough. In this city, Haejin could not escape his reach.
Lyle’s eyes, dark and sunken, glinted sharply.
***
“…Not much left.”
After wandering, he had ended up somewhere quite remote. The temperature had dropped further; white breath continued to spill from his lips even as he spoke briefly.
Haejin stared blankly at the fog-covered forest, then looked back at the ATM screen. It was a small amount—barely enough to worry about next week. And yet, strangely, he felt no sense of crisis. He was drifting without home or money.
A vague dryness brushed the tip of his nose. It was nearly midwinter. In this city, famous for heavy rain, thick snow sometimes scattered in winter.
Winter was the perfect season to fade away. Even if he died somewhere alone, snow would cover him.
After a brief hesitation, Haejin withdrew all the remaining money. He had already come this far out to find an ATM, and there was not enough to bother splitting into multiple withdrawals.
As he wandered aimlessly, a signboard caught his eye.
Snow Lake.
A lake in the outskirts where he had once gone on a picnic with his family.
Seeing it, he suddenly wanted to see the lake. Perhaps, if he stood alone in that empty place, he might finally cry.
Watching the machine spit out bills with mechanical sounds, Haejin lifted his head and looked at the sky. It was heavily overcast and cold enough that it seemed rain would come again tomorrow. Snow would take a little longer.
Until now, he had moved carefully enough not to leave obvious traces. A faint sense of foreboding had prompted him to start walking, but he had found he could forget the pain in his legs more easily than expected. Perhaps it was because he had not seen the outside world in five years.
Naturally, Lyle had not come for him even once in that time.
Whether he could not find him—or chose not to—Haejin did not know.